Receiving foreign students in France

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The "Excellence Major" program currently supports nearly 800 students who are also ambassadors for the French education model. Thanks to their dual cultural background and their perfect command of several languages, these students are also valuable contacts who will support the international development of French companies.

Foreign student and researcher mobility : making France more attractive

The assets enabling France to attract researchers, professors, students and companies must be emphasized and developed in coordination with all the players concerned. French universities need to become more internationally competitive in order to attract the best foreign students, whose presence helps compensate for the relative scarcity of callings in scientific domains among French students, particularly at the doctoral level. Our country must also place positive emphasis on the recent changes and reforms in French universities, the measures facilitating foreign investment in France and the development of incentive programs encouraging exportation.

The Mobility and Attractiveness Policy Directorate of the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (MAEE) is based on the competitive clusters “model.” These clusters, which include research laboratories, universities and companies from a given region, were created in 2005 as part of regional town and country planning. From the outset, their goal was to encourage teamwork among players generally unaccustomed to this type of coordination. Similarly, combining these three sectors (business, research laboratories and universities) under a single administrative umbrella makes it possible to surpass increasingly porous borders and address the issues relating to international mobility with all of these influential French players.